NewcomerKarlee Perez has joined Ondi Timoner’s written and directed biopic Mapplethorpe, starring Doctor Who and The Crown star Matt Smith as avant-garde photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The film, which is scheduled to begin shooting this month, follows Mapplethorpe from his 1970s rise to fame to his untimely death due to complications from HIV/AIDS in 1989. Perez will play Lisa Lyon, the first World Women’s Bodybuilding champion and one of Roberts famous Muses. Timoner is producing under her Interloper Films banner, along with Eliza and Nate Dushku of Boston Diva Productions and Sirad Balducci. CAA and UTA are handling sales for this project. Repped by Mavrick Artists Agency, The Green Room Managment and KPA talent, Perez recently wrapped on the indie film Nations Fire with Gil Bellows and Bruce Dern.

The Vampire Diaries actorRaffi Barsoumian has been cast in the indie film The Rest Of Us from writer/director Linda Moss. Set in Spring 2002, post 9/11, the pic follows a motley crew of math and science students as they re-evaluate who they are in the wake of changing cultural and psychological landscapes. The University is pushed to the brink as the country’s emerging rage against Muslims and a campus-wide suicide crisis forces everyone to reconsider where they stand. Barsoumian will play a new faculty member at the school, a closeted Muslim, who torn between his desire to protect his students and concerns for his own safety. Mary Stuart Masterson, who starred in the 1991 film Fried Green Tomatoes, is producing The Rest Of Us. The pic marks Barsoumian’s first feature role. He’s repped by Innovative, Gartner/Green and attorney Mitch Smelkinson.